“The Art of Remembrance,” an exhibit featuring 22 years of SMU student artwork reflecting the global human struggle for tolerance and dignity, runs though May 27 at the Goodrich Gallery, First United Methodist Church, 1928 Ross Ave., Dallas.

The 35 works, from photography to mixed-media, “don’t represent the uplifting themes that generally inspire works of art,” says Rick Halperin, director of the Embrey Human Rights Program in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities & Sciences, whose course “America’s Dilemma: The Struggle for Human Rights,” inspired much of the artwork. “But art is a universal media that everybody can use to powerfully depict issues that resonate.” These particular works, he says, “are phenomenal.”

The wide variety of human rights issues represented — from genocide and country-sponsored torture to LGBT intolerance and death penalty injustices — “is a tribute to all who have inspired the students to be empathetic to difficult subject matters involving bad human behavior,” Halperin says. “It’s also a tribute to the students themselves, many of whom are now parents hoping to help their own children to be empathetic to such issues.”